In many ways, this movie reminded me of A Place in the Sun, a film I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post. Except instead of a man from a humble poor family falling for the daughter of his wealthy employer while managing to knock up a fellow factory worker, a college student, Bud Corliss (played by Robert Wagner), finds out a fellow student, Dorothy (played by Joanne Woodward) is pregnant.
Given the likelihood that her Daddy won’t approve and Dorothy’s lack of interest in relying on her father’s not-inconsiderable wealth, Bud decides it’s time to sever their relationship — with extreme prejudice.
I won’t say exactly how or when it happens, but the event lives up to the title.
Then, guess who Bud latches onto? Well, Dorothy’s sister, Ellen, of course. She knows nothing of Bud’s previous relationship with her dead sister. And, even though Bud tries to make it look like suicide, Ellen has her doubts about that. This leads, of course, to various machinations on Brad’s part.
On the whole, I found the movie to be genuinely suspenseful. Bud is such a shit. Wagner really mines a dark place for this role — and so against type. After a while, you’re practically begging for him to die screaming in a particularly nasty way.
Oh, and fortunately for Ellen, she’s aided in her search for the truth by her tutor, Gordon Grant (played by Jeffrey Hunter). And the acting is top-rate.
The story leads up to one of those nail-biting climaxes that you can see coming ten minutes before they arrive. And yet that only serves to build the tension even more.
I mean, toward the end, the film has a montage of shots in which Ellen and Bud drive out to a pit mining operation site in the middle of nowhere. Just the two of them. Now, seriously — how can you not guess where this is going?
The movie both mocks and embraces the stifling conformist values of the Fifties, in that we get a both a strong-ish heroine and a victimized woman in the form of the sisters. And does so in a highly-compelling story with enough twists to keep it from being completely predictable.
PS: The word “pregnant” was cut from some versions of the film by various censors. Yes, it was the Fifties.
And here’s the only YouTube video I could find that didn’t contain any spoilers! 🙂 My thanks to Eddie Muller and TCM Noir Alley for showing this film.
Directed by Gerd Oswald
Produced by Robert L. Jacks
Screenplay by Lawrence Roman (based on the novel by Ira Levin)
Share this:
Like this:
Like Loading…
